


In Vino Veritas

by squirrellysemantics



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: M/M, Sexual Content, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-10
Updated: 2010-10-10
Packaged: 2017-10-12 13:30:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/125383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squirrellysemantics/pseuds/squirrellysemantics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wine extracts truth from many things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Vino Veritas

The line “The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding” is a quote of Leonardo da Vinci’s in actuality.

\-------------

Dinner at _La Rosa Della Virtù_ was a welcome respite. Ezio had thought it a marvelous idea when Leonardo suggested it.  Men would frequently ask to dine while the courtesans attended to them and it offered them fine food in relative safety.

The assassin brought his glass to his lips and drained the last of its contents.  It had been a long few months tracking down more of the Codex within _Venezia’s_ many _sestieri_ , each page better hidden than the last.  It was a rare treat to relax in the company of wine, women and friends. 

Well, one friend more than any other.

He hid his smile behind the rim of his glass, tacitly observing Leonardo from across their small table. Wine had flowed freely this night.  It amused him no end to see the reserved man so… liberated.

Blotches of color filled Leonardo’s normally pale cheeks.  “Ech, Carlotta!” Liquid dribbled over long fingers as the artist gesticulated wildly with his wineglass at one of Teodora’s girls.  “It has come to my attention that there something most terrible has occurred.  Ezio’s glass is empty!”  He playfully pounded his hand on the table. “This must be remedied at once!”

Carlotta swayed to the assassin’s side with an indulgent smile and gave a generous pour of wine.  “ _Grazie_ ,” Ezio murmured distractedly, alcohol making it difficult to focus on anything but the wine-soaked antics of the other man.   

“Come, a toast!” The smile Leonardo shot him as he raised his glass was dazzling. “It warms my heart to see you so at ease, my friend!”

“Good times come from those that share our table,” Ezio answered as he returned the smile. “ _Salute_.” He had to admit that the Valpolicella was light, aromatic, easy on the tongue.  A warm glow rose up from his core to blanket his mind in a pleasant fog.  It was most enjoyable. 

With the enthusiasm that went into emptying his glass, it seemed that Leonardo also found this to be so.   A line of red spilled down the artist’s chin from his enthusiastic drinking. 

The path it took consumed all of Ezio’s attention, everything else becoming trivial. 

He wanted to … Oh, how he wanted to touch-

Bah!  What a fool he was. 

If Ezio so wanted, he could have any amount of young, beautiful flesh quivering for him until they both had their fill. Male or female, it mattered little as long as the body was willing.  In his younger days, it had been easy to think pleasure the same as passion.  Over time he had come to appreciate the difference but the direction his life had taken made the former so much easier to acquire than the latter.

But his needs hadn’t changed.  He craved that passion, longed for fire.

The man before him had both in abundance.

To be honest, thoughts such as these had entered Ezio’s mind more than once but this was his oldest friend.  This was not a line he would cross lightly.  Leonardo was too important to him to risk making a mess of things. 

 _Mio Dio_. How the desire to claim that sticky trail still gnawed at him.  

“Artists!” declared Valentina, one of the bolder of Teodora’s courtesans. “Always making such a mess!”  She leaned in to Leonardo to better present her ample bosom.   With a napkin in hand, she cleaned the wine that stained the man’s chin.  She guided the blonde’s arm around her waist as she daintily brushed at his face.    

Ezio squirmed in his seat.   The Valpolicella that sat on his tongue seemed to go quite sour. 

The brazen girl pulled open the collar of Leonardo’s _camicia_ , exposing a swathe of pale skin.  “Shall we make sure that you have not spilled wine elsewhere?”

The thump of a glass hitting the table made everyone jump -apart from Ezio who still had his hand wrapped around the stem of his cup.

Blue eyes regarded him with concern, albeit with a slight haze to them.  “What troubles you, my friend?”

“It is nothing,” he grunted, angry at himself for acting the child.

 Leonardo watched him more closely for a moment.  You could see the wheels in his mind turn before he turned his attention to the others in the room.  “Ladies, it perhaps would be best if you leave us for a moment.”

There was much pouting and lamentation but the women did as he asked.

“Now we are alone, I wish to hear the truth.”  The artist eased back into his chair and raised his glass for a sip.  “You were so relaxed but moments before, it’s a crime to see it all swept away.”

“The wine- it makes me regret that which I cannot have.”  Ezio tried to fend this persistence off with a casual wave.  “I am ashamed to find myself so weak willed.” 

“Though sometimes it is good to embrace your baser self, no?”  Leonardo leaned forward, sharing a mischievous grin that sent a pulse of arousal straight through the assassin.  " _Il vino fa ballare i vecchi."_ The artist raised his glass to this and took another draught.

A fresh bead of wine clung to the edge of beard so close to the curve of Leonardo’s mouth.  To taste it, right here, right now… 

Ezio rose from the table as he cursed his own foolishness.  “There is too much danger in what I want.” 

He pretended to search for the evening’s full moon to try and ignore the eyes tunneling into his back.

“I’ve never seen you shirk from danger, Ezio.  For a man who takes such risks with his life, it seems a paradox that you would so tightly cloister your heart.”

This hit far too close to home. It seemed impossible that this man could be so sharp that the better part of two bottles of wine did little to dull his mind. 

But this was Leonardo, who had always easily made the impossible become possible.

“The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding,” Leonardo added. “It is never wrong to risk exploring your desires, Ezio.  How better to know yourself?”    

“My wants may put others in harm’s way.  What then?” Ezio asked softly, turning to face the man at the table.  His instincts screamed caution as they did with any dangerous mission.

The artist tilted his head as if considering the question in the abstract.  “If they are willing to accept the dangers, then I see no reason not to pursue it.  The consequences of inaction are a life of doubt and regret.”  Leonardo’s voice faltered as he finally met Ezio’s eye.  “At least, that has been my experience.”

Ezio felt his mouth go dry, his heart pounding as if he had found himself in the midst of a hundred Templars.  “So are you willing, _amico mio_?  To see where we could go?”

“For you?”  His assassin’s body twitched at the waves of heat that radiated off the other man.  “Anything.”

Barely a breath had passed before they were both moving to descend upon each other, emotion flooding them both like a dam broken.   Ezio -of course the quicker of the two- trapped Leonardo against the table that still held their half eaten dinner.  Fingers fisted in each other’s hair, each man threatening to pull out great  handfuls by the roots as they kissed. 

Cherry notes of the Valpolicella were delicious against the man’s skin, as Ezio knew it would be. The coarse scrape of beard adding a hint of roughness that was perfection. 

Rough.  It was perfectly clear that was a mutual desire at this moment.  No time for tenderness, no reason to curb this ferocity. It made him harder than stone to see Leonardo just as frantic as he. 

They had much lost time to recover. 

The heavy table creaked under their weight as they sprawled across it, carelessly shoving dishes to the side.  Clothing posed little barrier as they parted what little they needed as they bit and clawed at each other in their frenzy.  He trapped one of Leonardo’s hands- those hands of an artisan- in his own, aleady suckling off what was left of sticky traces of wine.

Leonardo’s other hand was free and made good use of its time to unwrap both their arousals.  Long demon fingers brought them together and the blonde man already had them thrusting into his fist. 

Ezio moaned around the fingers in his mouth.  His mind was already in a whirl from the smoothness of one cock against the other.   The effects of a practiced hand that created a sheath just for the two of them threatened to blow his mind.  Each sure stroke walked the line between pleasure and pain with the confidence that only a man that knew precisely the limits of his own tolerance could provide.

“What a fool I was to keep myself from this!”  Leonardo licked at the vital artery that pounded like mad in the curve of Ezio’s neck. 

The assassin had moved on to tasting the pale line of collar bone.  “It was I who should have been less of a coward.”  With that, he slipped his hands under the older man’s ass and deposited him easily on the table.   “I have been much deprived.”  Ezio sank to his knees, the table affording him much more comfortable access to what he wanted next. 

 _“Cazzo_! Your mouth!”  The exultations as Ezio engulfed the man’s length were music to his ears.  “ _Si bel pezzo d'uomo!”_

He could spend all day laving the cock that arched so insistently along a flat belly.  Hard sucking and a few swirls of the tongue had Leonardo gripping the table, carelessly knocking to the floor what few plates that remained.   This handiwork was too delicious to not sit back and admire. 

“Don’t stop!” Leonardo panted as if the hounds of hell were chasing him.  Sweat matting blonde hair to a high forehead was a beautiful thing.  “Please don’t stop!” 

“Not now,” Ezio rumbled in agreement.  He sliced through the man’s trousers with an easy flick of the wrist.  “Not ever.”   He reached for the dipping oil, a remnant of their meal.   Carefully he prepared the other man’s entrance though the artist cursed him soundly for his patience. 

“My vengeance will be most cruel, _bastardo_!” Leonardo babbled, blindly tossing his head as the assassin’s fingers slowly worked him. “I will have you begging me for release!”

Ezio chuckled from deep in his chest.  “Is that a promise?”    With no more warning, he seated the head of his cock and _pushed_ into tight heat.    The feel of the other man digging his heels into his back to meet his thrust took him by surprise.

Relief filled their combined sigh.  Then they began to move.

 _“Forte!”_  Leonardo’s demand was insistent as he used the table as leverage to grind his hips. _“ Scopami piu forte!”_

Never one to refuse a request of such urgency, Ezio threw his considerable strength behind the snap of his hips, thanking Teodora for having the foresight to equip her rooms with such strong furniture. 

Moans and groans echoed in the small room as they battled, for it was a battle with each striving to be the first to bring the other to completion:  Leonardo clenching around the cock inside him; Ezio handling the other man’s member with an expert twist.

There was one thing that Leonardo had forgotten.  Ezio was not above the occasional dirty trick. 

The assassin tilted the hips of the man underneath him, changing to an angle that allowed him to go _deep_.  

“ _Che… Si…”_   The artist tried and failed to hold onto any form of reason before he made a loud shout of incoherent nonsense, shooting thick and white across Ezio’s hand. 

Being surrounded by waves of pleasure was too much for him and Ezio followed the other man almost immediately. 

They collapsed into an exhausted pile drenched with sweat and other things.

“So,” Ezio murmured drowsily into the other man’s ear. “When should I expect my punishment?”

“Soon, _amore mio_.”  Leonardo dug possessive fingers into the assassin’s back even as sleep pulled him in.  “Soon.”

\-----------------------

 _Sestieri_ \- subdivisions

 _Il vino fa ballare i vecchi._ Wine makes the old folks dance.

 _Si bel pezzo d'uomo_ -  You handsome piece of man.

 _Forte!  Scopami piu forte!_ \- Harder!  Fuck me harder!

 _Che… Si…”_     What, You

 

  


 </p>


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